Note 37 — Chapter III · PARLIAMENTS AND ELECTIONEERING UNDER JAMES II., WILLIAM III., AND QUEEN ANNE.

Lord Grimston’s curious comedy, in five acts and in verse(!), “The Lawyer’s Fortune, or Love in a Hollow Tree,” was first published in 1704, as a quarto; being a foolish attempt, in fact, the merest trash, the author, it is said, suppressed it. The edition printed, as alleged, by the Duchess of Marlborough’s orders, is dated 1736. Besides the heading of an elephant performing on a rope, a satirical frontispiece was engraved, in which Lord Grimston is seen interrogating a sage, ensconced in the “hollow tree” of his play; a jackass is the most conspicuous object in the foreground; the animal wears a coronet, and is intended to typify the doltish author, who is farther ridiculed in a burlesque dedication “To the Right Sensible the Lord Flame.”